Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a common technique used in planarization of films during fabrication of integrated circuit (IC) chips. CMP includes rotating a pad in a slurry including abrasives to planarize a surface and/or define conductive interconnect patterns of a wafer. However, a number of factors may result in the CMP process producing a non-planar surface. For example, it is common for sparsely populated areas (e.g., areas of a wiring level having a low pattern density of features such as wires, interconnects, etc.) to be overpolished during a CMP process, which can result in dishing of the layer being polished and/or damage to the layer beneath the layer being polished.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.